Epilogue
“You’re sure about this.”
Grey tightened his hold on his wife and dipped his head to inhale the delicious scent of her neck.
“Who is sure about anything?” he teased, beginning to let his hands wander over the softly curved body he had been dreaming of for the three months it had taken his various bones and bruises to heal.
He’d never have his face back to its former glory, but Georgie didn’t seem to mind.
At least she didn’t seem to shy away from his kisses.
And oh Lord, had he been enjoying his kisses.
Now, he was about finally to enjoy more.
“The girls are at your parents’?” he asked from somewhere near her collarbone.
She stretched her neck to give him more access. “For two nights.” He could actually feel her grin. “At least.”
“Mrs. Keynes?”
He got a sly smile. “Relocated to her other daughter’s home in York. The stipend you settled on her helped. The girls don’t say anything, but I think they’re relieved.”
“No more relieved than I. And the staff?”
“Have been given the night off. Except Braxton, of course, who lives in fear you will call out for help and he not be tucked in his room. I am free to make whatever lascivious noises I wish.”
It was his turn to grin. “A challenge I cannot refuse. Where shall I deflower you?” he asked. “The desk? The floor? The bed?”
“What about all three? Starting with the bed, I think. I do admit that I have grown fond of the luxury of it.”
He began on the buttons down the back of her gown.
She shivered. “One-handed. You seem awfully practiced at this, sir.”
He refused to be distracted from his task. “Not since setting eyes on you, madame.”
God, her skin was soft, tantalizing, all the way down the sweep of her back. All along the column of her throat, where he could lay his lips against her quickening pulse. Beneath her jaw, where he ran his tongue, just to get the taste of her.
He fought for patience so that he could give her the delight she deserved for loving his unworthy self. For her calm and compassion and patience with his quirks and crotchets as he’d healed. For just being his Georgie.
Ah, there went the dress, sliding down her arms, her waist, her delicious hips. He reached down to pick her up. She stepped right out of his hold.
“Don’t you dare,” she warned, her eyes sparkling. “The very last thing I need right now is for you to pull an almost healed injury and forbid me the reward I have been so patiently and graciously awaiting.”
Giving him one last suggestive smile, she reached down and did away with her undergarments, and Grey damn near dropped to the floor right there.
He was so proud of himself. He actually took the time to disrobe and follow her up onto the cocoon of her bed where they could hide amid peach-colored curtains and cloud-soft down.
He held himself back from ravaging her as he finally kissed her to his heart’s content, testing and tasting and tempting with lips and tongue and teeth, all the while savoring the sweet silk of her body with his own.
He even let her hands explore his own body, from the curling hair on his chest to his flat abdomen and lower, oh Lord, lower, until she tested him past endurance.
And yet, he still took the time to christen her breasts, to taste and tease and suck until she bowed right off the bed, whimpering his name, a sound he knew he would never tire of.
And then, when she was trembling and sweating, he slid his hand up her thigh to test the tight curls at their apex, to slip his fingers inside, to savor the slick, hot core of her, delighting in the fact that she was more than ready for him, that she was so responsive that her whimpers quickly grew to cries, to demands, to pleas.
To the surprised gasps of a climax he could feel pulsing about his fingers.
Only then did he ease her legs wide and position himself over her. Only then did he ease his way in, pausing for her stiffening.
“I’m all right,” she all but growled when he stopped. She yanked hard at his hair. “Don’t…stop…”
So he didn’t. He pushed through and then began to rock.
She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him in, enclosing him in her heat until he was mindless with urgency, until he could no longer hold back, and with his own cry of surprise poured himself into her, so deep he knew he would never recover. Would never want to recover.
And finally, when she followed him, this time crying out, head thrown back, hands clutching his sides, body convulsing around his cock, when they both collapsed in each other’s arms, he knew he’d taken his final step in coming home to his own family.
Truly home. And that, just as he’d promised the girls, he would never leave again.